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enalmanac/astronomy-bloghttps://feedburner.google.comThe Best Meteors in Yearshttp://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/best-meteors-years
<!-- google_ad_section_start --><p>Everyone loves shooting stars. Get ready for the best display in years.</p>
<!--break--><!--break--><p>The Moon is absent, skies are optimally dark, and the famous <strong>Perseid meteors</strong> will peak over two nights, providing cloud insurance. Plan on watching <strong>Tuesday night, August 11</strong>.</p>
<p>If you can see lots of stars you&#39;ll see lots of meteors too. If it&#39;s very hazy or else overcast, the following night offers slightly more &quot;falling stars,&quot; but with fewer brilliant specimens.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/milky-way-451599_1280.jpg" style="width: 559px; height: 372px;" /><br />
<em><strong>The Perseid Meteor Showers</strong></em></p>
<p>Your backyard is perfect if you&#39;re away from urban light pollution and turn off all your house lights. If you live in a city, this is the time to visit those friends in the country.</p>
<ul>
<li>
Be comfortable.&nbsp; Spread out blankets or lounge chairs.</li>
<li>
You need a big swath of unobstructed sky. Don&#39;t stare through little breaks between trees. Find unlit track or soccer fields, cemeteries, lakesides, and get into the open. If you live in Montana or Kansas your entire state qualifies.</li>
<li>
<span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">On either night, you&#39;ll see 15 an hour before 11 PM, and the best direction to face is northeast.&nbsp;</span></li>
<li>
<span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">From midnight onward, the sky explodes with <strong>50 to 60 shooting stars&nbsp;an hour</strong>, and now any part of the heavens will work.</span></li>
</ul>
<p>You can easily go five minutes seeing none at all so don&#39;t get discouraged and quit.&nbsp; During another random five minute period, you might catch 10 of them. The trick is to keep watching.&nbsp; Don&#39;t keep looking at your companions while chatting with them. Don&#39;t merely glance up now and then. Your eyes must be married to the sky.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/perseids_raining.jpg" style="width: 560px; height: 380px;" /></p>
<p><em><strong>Raining Perseids! Credit: NASA</strong></em></p>
<h3>
<img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/perseid-power.jpg" style="width: 560px; height: 373px;" /></h3>
<p><em style="font-size: 11.9999990463257px; line-height: 20.3999996185303px;"><strong>Perseids Power! Credit:NASA</strong></em></p>
<h3>
Some quick, cool facts about meteors?</h3>
<ul>
<li>
Most Perseid meteors are the size of apple seeds.</li>
<li>
All travel at 37 miles a second. That&#39;s 80 times faster than a bullet.</li>
<li>
Their distance from you is always between 60 and 100 miles&mdash;even the brilliant ones that seem to come down in the next field. One in three leave behind glowing trains that linger for a second or two like Cheshire Cat smiles.</li>
</ul>
<p><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">It&#39;s the best, most romantic &quot;cheap date&quot; ever. Or if you have kids, you&#39;ll give them an experience they&#39;ll never forget.</span></p>
<!-- google_ad_section_end -->http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/best-meteors-years#commentsAstronomy BlogThu, 30 Jul 2015 04:00:00 +0000Bob Berman80260 at http://www.almanac.comThis Week's Amazing Sky: The Blue Moonhttp://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/anti-blue-moon
<!-- google_ad_section_start --><p>July 2015 brings us<strong> two full Moons</strong> in the same calendar month. But which is a <strong>Blue Moon</strong>? And why is it called a Blue Moon? There&#39;s been a lot of hype. Get the scoop here.</p>
<!--break--><!--break--><h2>
When is the Blue Moon?</h2>
<p>The first full Moon rose on&nbsp;<strong>July 1</strong>. This was the year&#39;s lowest full moon. At its highest at 1 AM, it didn&#39;t even get one-third of the way up the sky, from typical North American locations. It was much lower than that as seen in Canada or Europe. <strong>Low moons look more orange</strong>, thanks to the thick air near the horizon. Some have even suggested that its amber color is the origin of the term, &quot;Honey Moon.&quot;</p>
<p>The second full Moon rises on <strong>July 31</strong>. It&#39;s this second full Moon of the month qualifies as a <strong>Blue Moon</strong>, according to popular definition.</p>
<p>(<a href="http://www.almanac.com/content/full-buck-moon-julys-moon-guide">See Moon phase times on our July Moon Guid</a>e.)</p>
<h2>
Why is it Called the Blue Moon?</h2>
<p>We got a lot of letters about this. Some folks imagine that it actually appears blue. Others assume it&#39;s a term that originated with native folklore. Neither is true.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The inside scoop is that calling any month&#39;s second full Moon a blue Moon only started in the 1940s as a result of a mistake in an astronomy magazine.&nbsp;<span style="font-size: 11.9999990463257px; line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">But it slowly went viral until nowadays the second full moon in the same calendar month is widely called a blue moon.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">The notion has no venerable pedigree among native Americans, ancient cultures, or anything in the actual sky.&nbsp; So OK, we&#39;ll play along and call it a blue Moon. Just so you know, it&#39;s a new idea.</span></p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/moon-blue.jpg" style="width: 560px; height: 315px;" /></p>
<p>Every heard the expression, &quot;Once in a Blue Moon?&quot; It suggests great rarity. In reality, since the Moon&#39;s period of phases is 29 1/2 days while months usually have 30 or 31 days, it&#39;s obvious that if a full Moon lands on the first day of any month except February it will repeat again at the end.</p>
<p>Turns out, blue moons happen every 30 months on average. Two and a half years.</p>
<p>Not so very rare.&nbsp;<span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">Once in a blue Moon? Stick around!</span></p>
<p>Meantime, enjoy this one, whose color will likely be the exact opposite of blue.</p>
<p>Coming soon: <a href="http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/best-meteors-years">The best meteor shower in years</a>!</p>
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<!-- google_ad_section_end -->http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/anti-blue-moon#commentsAstronomy BlogTue, 28 Jul 2015 04:00:00 +0000Bob Berman79641 at http://www.almanac.comSummer Storms: Run or Walk?http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/summer-storms-run-or-walk
<!-- google_ad_section_start --><p>You look up to enjoy a starry summer sky but instead see a flash. For most of us, this is thunderstorm season.&nbsp; You finish dinner at a restaurant and it&#39;s suddenly pouring.&nbsp; You gaze at your car parked not so far away.&nbsp; Should you walk or run?</p>
<!--break--><!--break--><p>Believe it or not, scientists have debated this for years.&nbsp; If you run you get there faster, so less rain hits you.&nbsp; But meanwhile you&#39;re slamming more frontwise into the droplets, making them preferentially strike your chest and legs.&nbsp; If you&#39;d walked, they&#39;d mostly hit your head and shoulders, which offer less surface.</p>
<p>Is this logic correct? Which strategy results in you being dryer?</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/running-815302_1280.jpg" style="width: 560px; height: 315px;" /></p>
<p> In the late eighties, an Italian physicist calculated that running through a rain storm would keep you 10% drier than walking.&nbsp; Barely any difference. Hardly worth the effort, especially since you&#39;d be more likely to slip and fall.&nbsp; Then in 1995 a British researcher decided that walking is better, because the drenching of your entire front side would negate the slight benefit of getting there faster.</p>
<p> The next year, two North Carolina climatologists put the whole issue to an actual test.&nbsp; They each wore identical clothing and water measuring equipment.&nbsp; One of them ran 100 meters through a downpour while the other simultaneously walked.&nbsp; Result?&nbsp; The one who walked was 40% wetter.</p>
<p>Bottom line: run to the car.</p>
<p>But you already instinctively knew that, didn&#39;t you?</p>
<!-- google_ad_section_end -->http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/summer-storms-run-or-walk#commentsAstronomy BlogWed, 22 Jul 2015 17:54:14 +0000Bob Berman80197 at http://www.almanac.comShould Pluto be a Planet?http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/should-pluto-be-planet
<!-- google_ad_section_start --><p>During this exciting time when we&#39;re getting the first-ever close-up pictures of Pluto, let&#39;s re-visit what to many people is a sore subject.</p>
<!--break--><!--break--><p>In 2006 the International Astronomical Union, the world body that names the contents of the universe, demoted Pluto to a Dwarf Planet because it really does not match the other eight. It&#39;s far smaller, with only 4% the mass of even tiny Mercury. And it has a very unplanetlike orbit from every angle. But the clincher was finding more Plutos out there. Eris is bigger than Pluto, while Makemake, Quaoar, Sedna, and a few others are almost as large. If Pluto&#39;s a planet, then those others must be planets too.</p>
<p>It became clear that there&#39;s a Kuiper Belt out there with thousands of small icy unplanetlike bodies, and Pluto&#39;s one of them.&nbsp; A whole different ball game from the &quot;original eight&quot; planets. So if you&#39;re one of those who&#39;d like to see Pluto called a major planet again, be aware that you&#39;re opening the door to lots more &quot;major planets&quot; that will be tiny ice-balls with odd names, all of which will be smaller than our moon.</p>
<p>Anyway, what&#39;s in a name? Until about a century ago, rabbits were classified as rodents. Then their order was abruptly changed so that now they&#39;re lagomorphs. That&#39;s mostly because they have four incisor teeth instead of two. But hey, they still hop around. So Pluto is Pluto regardless of which mental box we try to make it fit.</p>
<p>Its widespread appeal is helped by its popular name, though most people don&#39;t know that it was originally suggested by a schoolgirl, or that its first two letters, PL, honor the initials of Percival Lowell, the astronomer who tirelessly hunted for it and at whose observatory it was finally found. As for the cartoon dog, IT was originally named Rover. In 1931, a year after Pluto&#39;s discovery, the Walt Disney folks decided to exploit the newly found world&#39;s publicity, and changed the character&#39;s name to that of the planet.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/pluto-dog.jpg" style="width: 560px; height: 280px;" /><br />
<strong><em>Pluto&#39;s photo by New Horizons on July 13, 2015&mdash;plus, a creative interpretation.</em></strong></p>
<p> Even if it&#39;s been demoted to a dwarf like so many other Disney characters, Pluto is now a whole new world. Especially this month, which the New Horizons craft will send us all the photos it frantically took as it whizzed past&mdash;the first-ever spacecraft to visit that strange tiny world.</p>
<p> Tell us what you think of the &quot;new Pluto&quot;&mdash;and whether you&#39;re okay with it being&nbsp; a &quot;dwarf planet.&quot;</p>
<!-- google_ad_section_end -->http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/should-pluto-be-planet#commentsAstronomy BlogTue, 14 Jul 2015 04:00:00 +0000Bob Berman80049 at http://www.almanac.comLights of a Lifetime: The Old Farmer’s Almanac Northern Lights Tour (Part 2)http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/lights-lifetime-old-farmer%E2%80%99s-almanac-northern-lights-tour-part-2
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<p>This is Part II of an aurora-viewing adventure on <strong>The&nbsp;Old Farmer&rsquo;s Almanac Northern Lights Tour</strong>.</p>
<!--break--><!--break--><p>The tour got off to a <strong><a href="http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/lights-lifetime-old-farmer%E2%80%99s-almanac-northern-lights-tour-part-1">spectacular start on night #1, March 17</a></strong>, thanks to the arrival of a burst of solar radiation that excited the northern lights to levels of display seldom seen before. We were at Cleary Summit, outside Fairbanks, Alaska, and what we saw was truly otherworldly.</p>
<p>Maybe this is a good place to reiterate that this recounting is not meant to be a scientific bible of auroras. I&rsquo;m just an editor of <em>The Old Farmer&rsquo;s Almanac</em>&mdash;true, with a fairly good grasp of astronomy as we all have&mdash;but let me encourage you to use your Googling fingers for more details if you want.</p>
<p>Of course, for those of us (including me) who had never before seen an aurora at fairly close range, there was no means for comparison, but everyone, everywhere, on <strong>Day #2, March 18,</strong> was talking about the truly historical astronomical.</p>
<p>You might say that this was dumb luck on our part&mdash;to have been at this place at this time for viewing&mdash;and you would be wrong. In fact, our tour was scheduled here and now on purpose because Fairbanks has one of the best combinations of geographical northness (if that is a word), reachability (ditto), and clear weather at this time of year. Plus, we were coming up on the New Moon on the 20th, so it was one of the darkest times of the month.</p>
<p><img alt="Northern Lights Trip to Alaska" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/6 CH IMG_2520.JPG" style="width: 560px; height: 420px;" title="Northern Lights Trip to Alaska" /></p>
<p>
As far as the huge solar flare and its amazing enhancement of the aurora went, we totally predicted that, too. Not. All right, so the degree of our success was in fact dumb luck&mdash;we confess. But if opportunity knocks, you need to be at the door.</p>
<p>Whereas during Day #1 we had been excited in anticipating our first viewing excursion because it was, well, our first viewing excursion, now in Day #2 we are more agog over what the actual prospects for spectacularity are going be, grizzled and somewhat jaded veterans that we now are. The forecast is for another Level 4, same as Night #1, but can anything equal what we saw last night? Seriously?</p>
<p>The game is changing, though. Today we board a bus taking us to the next destination on our tour, Chena Hot Springs Resort, some 50 miles east northeast of Fairbanks. That&rsquo;s 50 miles as the Alaska raven flies, because on the roads it&rsquo;s well more than 50 miles of snowpack after black spruce after white birch after snowpack after black spruce after white birch after more snowpack. And in case you were wondering, the trees are really spindly because their roots have a tough time sucking water in the presence of permafrost. You get the picture. Oh, add moose tracks and those of numerous other critters.</p>
<p>As night approaches, we prepare to meet the cold &hellip; and the Snow Coaches. These are otherwise known as Snowcats, those tracked vehicles used for maintaining ski trails and numerous other snowy mountain tasks. Each coach has two pods, the first with the driver and three passengers. The second pod has two facing rows of five seats. We will be taking these 3 miles up a trail to a low summit at 2,600 feet where two heated yurts await to warm us with stoves and hot drinks if we want. Not bad!</p>
<p>Now they tell us that because last night was so awesome, they are moving up the start time for tonight. Be on time&mdash;don&rsquo;t get left behind! Like we&rsquo;re going to miss it.</p>
<p><img alt="Northern Lights Snowcats" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/7 CH IMG_0203.JPG" style="width: 560px; height: 420px;" title="Northern Lights Snowcats" /></p>
<p><strong><em>The Snowcats get ready to crawl.</em></strong></p>
<p>At 9:15, we&rsquo;re loading up. Safety instructions, the door closes. Whoa! Off we go. Hold on! It&rsquo;s like being in race car with four flat tires driving up a railroad track like crazy. But we make it, and step out into . . . a wonderland of white.</p>
<p>Our jaws drop. An eerie white light bathes everything. We are surrounded by other low mountaintops. Our top is perhaps half the size of a football field, packed snow with widely interspersed fir trees. Plus two yurts, maybe 30 feet in diameter, with the translucent center bubble at the top of one&rsquo;s peaked roof glowing like a soft yellow button atop a big beanie. Or maybe it&rsquo;s a secret signal to the firmament: Here, aurora! We&rsquo;re over here!</p>
<p><img alt="Aurora Lights" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/8 CH IMG_2483.JPG" style="width: 560px; height: 420px;" title="Aurora Lights" /></p>
<p>
And then: It&rsquo;s ba-a-a-a-ck.</p>
<p><img alt="Northern Lights Green Glow" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/9 CH IMG_2485.JPG" style="width: 560px; height: 420px;" title="Northern Lights Green Glow" /></p>
<p>The night sky begins to fill to our north. Aurora clouds begin to thicken into brighter, denser bands, shimmering, throbbing, waving. All the while, more aurora arrives, like more and more people trying to crowd into the same room. The particles bounce into one another and overlap and sometimes fall down.</p>
<p>Over there, there&rsquo;s a sheet of light that is wrinkling like someone has taken it outside to shake it. Opposite in the sky, a spiral Christmas tree ornament twirls and swings back and forth. Next to it, the smoke from someone&rsquo;s birthday candles wafts upward, occasionally buffeted by mysterious celestial breaths.</p>
<p><img alt="Northern Lights Trip Alaska" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/10 CH IMG_2487.JPG" style="width: 560px; height: 420px;" title="Northern Lights Trip Alaska" /></p>
<p>Let&#39;s put this into perspective. As the&nbsp;<em>Almanac&#39;s</em> Astronomy Editor Bob Berman later pointed out, your fist held at arm&rsquo;s length equals 10 degrees of elevation. So, for example, if you hold your arm straight out, you should be able to measure nine fists between the horizon (straight out) and your zenith (the point directly overhead)&mdash;or, a 90 degree angle.</p>
<p><img alt="Northern Lights Travel Alaska" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/11 CH IMG_2490.JPG" style="width: 560px; height: 420px;" title="Northern Lights Travel Alaska" /></p>
<p>These auroral spectacles are not some small things off in the distance. The aurora that floods the sky occupies at least 60 degrees, from the horizon up, in my estimation. The ornament dangling down in front of it is perhaps 30 to 40 degrees tall. These are big things. Big, supernatural, exciting, moving things. More than once I take comfort in knowing that I understand what is causing this, even though I can&rsquo;t believe what I am seeing. But I also think of humans eons ago. What must they have thought?</p>
<p><img alt="Dancing Northern Lights Trip" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/12 CH IMG_2497.JPG" style="width: 800px; height: 600px;" title="Dancing Northern Lights Trip" /></p>
<p>All of this is not the same as what we saw on Night #1. Well, it is. And it isn&rsquo;t, because it is constantly changing. And it is growing. Really growing. Really growing eerily. More and more of the sky is becoming awash, as the aurora tide sweeps higher and higher. Initial oohs and aahs have subsided somewhat, replaced by silent wonder.</p>
<p><img alt="Old Farmer's Almanac Northern Lights" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/13 CH IMG_2498(1).JPG" style="width: 560px; height: 420px;" title="Old Farmer's Almanac Northern Lights" /></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">Then, out to the west, in the aurora, or maybe coming out of it, I see a brighter line develop and trace its way across the lit backdrop. It makes a C. Which turns on its side. Which wiggles and reshapes. It&rsquo;s as though someone with a light saber or fiber optic wand is standing behind the aurora and sweeping the light back and forth and around, like a kid would do with a Fourth of July sparkler. Except that it doesn&rsquo;t sparkle or twinkle&mdash;it&rsquo;s more like a giant arc welder that has frozen its flash in the sky and then started moving it.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 20.3999996185303px;"><img alt="Lights of a Lifetime" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/14 CH IMG_0096.JPG" style="width: 560px; height: 420px;" title="Lights of a Lifetime" /></span></p>
<p><img alt="Northern Lights of a Lifetime" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/15 CH IMG_0097.JPG" style="width: 560px; height: 420px;" title="Northern Lights of a Lifetime" /></p>
<p>Now the ever-morphing C-arc comes closer and becomes clearer. Its structure looks like that of the narrow bottom part of a tornado funnel, but horizontal, and not twisting, and hundreds of miles long. It scoots along sideways like a solid celestial Slinky. Wait! Now it is becoming a pulsating astro-glowworm, writhing and wriggling in and against the auroral backdrop.</p>
<p><img alt="Astro-Glowworm" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/16 CH IMG_0098.JPG" style="width: 560px; height: 420px;" title="Astro-Glowworm" /></p>
<p><em><strong>The astro-glowworm.</strong></em></p>
<p>There is more. I can&rsquo;t even remember it all, much less describe it. When one wave fades, we go into the yurt and have some ramen noodles. The truly hardcore stay outside all the time. They know that anything can happen on a moment&rsquo;s notice. When the cries outside go up again, those inside the yurt exit to rejoin the wonder.</p>
<p>We leave the mountaintop at 2:00 a.m. Not even the bone-jarring Snowcat descent can shake away our astonishment and awe. It&rsquo;s almost as though we are unnerved by how spooky and how beautiful the same thing can be at the same time.</p>
<p><img alt="Alaskan Northern Lights Trip" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/17 CH IMG_0099.JPG" style="width: 560px; height: 420px;" title="Alaskan Northern Lights " /></p>
<p>Night #2 has been every bit the auroral spectacle of Night #1. We now have had two evenings for the northern lights record books, if there are such things. We will go on to have more viewing nights with wonderful, beautiful auroras. By any previous standards, these are topnotch and much to be treasured, but they are not Night #1 and Night #2.<br />
While I can&rsquo;t speak for everyone on our tour, I can surmise that in years to come, when we hear talk or see news of &ldquo;the best aurora of all time&rdquo; or whatever, we will just remember our March 17 and 18, 2015, nights on Alaska hilltops&mdash;and smile our Lights of a Lifetime smile.</p>
<p><img alt="Aurora Borealis Tour" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/18 CH2 IMG_0219.JPG" style="width: 560px; height: 420px;" title="Aurora Borealis Tour" /></p>
<p>Even on subsequent nights of the The Old Farmer&rsquo; Almanac Northern Lights tour, the aurora was quite spectacular.</p>
<h2>
Next Northern Lights Tour</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.almanac.com/tours"><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/northern-lights-300(1).jpeg" style="width: 150px; height: 96px; float: left; padding-right: 5px;" /></a>Join the Almanac for our next Northern Lights Trip to Alaska! It&#39;s a once-in-a-lifetime experience.</p>
<p>Take a peek at the <a href="http://www.almanac.com/tours">Northern Lights itinerary</a>.</p>
<!-- google_ad_section_end -->http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/lights-lifetime-old-farmer%E2%80%99s-almanac-northern-lights-tour-part-2#commentsAstronomy BlogSat, 11 Jul 2015 04:00:00 +0000Jack Burnett78501 at http://www.almanac.comLights of a Lifetime: The Old Farmer’s Almanac Northern Lights Tour (Part 1)http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/lights-lifetime-old-farmer%E2%80%99s-almanac-northern-lights-tour-part-1
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<p>This past winter, I had the opportunity to spend 6 days in Alaska on <strong><em>The Old Farmer&#39;s Almanac </em>Northern Lights Tour</strong>.</p>
<!--break--><!--break-->
<p>Led by famed Almanac Astronomy Editor Bob Berman, the tour included museum trips, indoor presentations and outdoor stargazing, fine food and lodging, sled dog rides, hot springs soaking, geothermal plant and Alaska pipeline visits, the World Ice Carving Championships, an arctic greenhouse visit, a moose sighting, a personal jaunt to the 2015 GCI Open North American Championship Sled Dog Race (and Parka Parade), and much, much more.&nbsp;</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/alaskaalmanac.jpg" style="width: 400px; height: 400px;" /></p>
<p>But let me get to the heart of the matter: the Lights. The northern lights, aka aurora borealis . . .</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/1 CL IMG_0006.JPG" style="font-size: 11.9999990463257px; line-height: 20.3999996185303px; width: 560px; height: 420px;" /></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">Somehow I need to retrieve enough of my blown-away mind to recount this in at least a semicoherent manner, so bear with me, please&mdash;but let me give you at the outset the disclaimer that this is not purported to be a scientific treatise. After all, I&rsquo;m just an editor, however temporarily addled. And just Google any of this or these places for more info.</span></p>
<p>OK, so on St. Paddy&rsquo;s night, March 17, a luxury coach took us from outside our hotel in Fairbanks, Alaska, to go on our first &ldquo;viewing.&rdquo; There were 31 of us, from all across the U.S., plus Canada and even Puerto Rico. We had everyone from a young lady of 12 to an elderly gentleman whose age &ldquo;you don&rsquo;t wanna know.&rdquo; Some people knew a lot about auroras; some knew zero. I think it was about 10&deg;F outside, relatively balmy. But maybe I&rsquo;m wrong, because we were all so bundled up that it was hard to tell. Everybody was psyched to be with their newfound friends to go on The Great Aurora Adventure.</p>
<p>Unbeknownst to all of us months ago when we independently decided to go on this tour (and as many of you may have heard), the Sun was to take the opportunity right before our first viewing to send off a huge eruption, which can greatly excite the aurora. So on this first night, the prediction is for a Level 4, &ldquo;moderate&rdquo; aurora&mdash;but in aurora-speak, &ldquo;moderate&rdquo; means &ldquo;Get your camera, fast!&rdquo;</p>
<p>The bus starts going. We go out of town farther and farther from the light pollution, up these windy roads (the air actually wasn&rsquo;t that windy), higher and higher, until at last we are at the famous Cleary Summit, a well-known ground zero for wonderful watching. There are cars at every turnout and overlook. And I should mention that we know from the hotel that there are people here literally from all over the world for this, so as you are out and about you hear many different languages. All in search of the aurora.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/3 CL IMG_2461(1).JPG" style="width: 560px; height: 420px;" /></p>
<p>That&rsquo;s the thing. When you see the northern lights from &ldquo;down below,&rdquo; say, northern New Hampshire, you see the shimmering glow on the horizon to the north or maybe some &ldquo;shower curtains&rdquo; of aurora as a low, colored band. Here, they are not far away on the horizon&mdash;they are right here. Right up there, up close and auroral&mdash;not far, far away in the distance. Well, I guess they are far, far away in the distance, but they don&rsquo;t just stay there. They move toward us and get bigger as they get closer.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/4 CL IMG_0005.JPG" style="width: 560px; height: 420px;" /></p>
<p><em><strong>The giant green genie is out of the bottle.</strong></em></p>
<p>Back to the parking lot. While we are looking at the &ldquo;smoke plume,&rdquo; behind us, to the west, giant genies in the sky have started to swirl up out of invisible bottles. Whoa! Which direction to watch?</p>
<p>Straight up, look! The plume now has turned into walls and curtains of colors right above us. They shimmer. They change. The aurora in its various parts looks like multicolored stardust spewing about. Curtains. Clouds. Wow! All of a sudden, a rippling curtain starts extending itself downward in a rush of particles from left to right, or actually, it&rsquo;s starting from afar and growing toward us. You can hear oohs and ahs and cries of amazement not just from where we are, but from other parking areas and hilltops. It&rsquo;s like lots of people are simultaneously opening their best holiday present ever and squealing with glee. The aurora stretches across the sky, but within it, separate aurora dance parties are taking place to our right, to our left, and straight ahead. And we can see more getting queued up to take their turn.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/5 CL IMG_2460.JPG" style="width: 560px; height: 420px;" /></p>
<p>Yikes! Some invisible Jack Frost has just blown a gigantic poof of particles at the bottom of a &ldquo;cloud.&rdquo; Yelps of wonder erupt from the watchers. Atop another curtain, a shower of particles tumbles down, like water overflowing a bathtub. Everything is swirling and changing and moving. Where to look? Where to LOOK? What on Earth is going on here?</p>
<p>And then, after about half an hour to 45 minutes (one place we were NOT looking was our watches or phones), just as suddenly as it developed, the aurora starts to quiet. A line of light and light clouds above us seems to move away toward the south. All done&mdash;for now. I can&rsquo;t speak for anyone else, but it is almost as though I am exhausted by the experience. How bad is that? Exhausted by spectacularness.</p>
<p>A subdued murmur spreads across the parking lot. It is people saying that they don&rsquo;t quite know what to say. We are all sort of stupefied.</p>
<p>And on it went. It is not really possible to describe this night sufficiently. And &ldquo;indescribable&rdquo; is too mild a word. About the best I can give to you is &ldquo;Heavenly,&rdquo; and you can interpret that as you will in any and all senses of the word.<br />
We start back.</p>
<p>So THAT is what the aurora is . . . pretty cool!</p>
<p>The bus driver first, and later other folks at the hotel shake their heads at us.</p>
<p>You have no idea, they say. No. Clue. We have been watching auroras for years, they say, and we have NEVER seen or even heard of anything like that. That was not the aurora&mdash;that was THE aurora.</p>
<p>Or so they thought. Because Night #2 would turn out to be just as unnerving as Night #1&mdash;if not more so.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/lights-lifetime-old-farmer%E2%80%99s-almanac-northern-lights-tour-part-2">To be continued. Click here</a>!</p>
<h2>
Next Northern Lights Tour</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.almanac.com/tours"><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/northern-lights-300(1).jpeg" style="width: 150px; height: 96px; float: left; padding-right: 5px;" /></a>Join the Almanac for our next Northern Lights Trip to Alaska! It&#39;s a once-in-a-lifetime experience.</p>
<p>Take a peek at the <a href="http://www.almanac.com/tours">Northern Lights itinerary</a>.</p>
<!-- google_ad_section_end -->http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/lights-lifetime-old-farmer%E2%80%99s-almanac-northern-lights-tour-part-1#commentsAstronomy BlogBlogsAstronomySpaceFri, 10 Jul 2015 04:00:00 +0000Jack Burnett78494 at http://www.almanac.comPluto is Getting Stranger by the Minutehttp://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/pluto-getting-stranger-minute
<!-- google_ad_section_start --><p>The New Horizons spacecraft is now just a few days from reaching <strong>Pluto</strong>. After traveling for 9 years, it is already sending back amazing close-ups.</p>
<!--break--><!--break--><p>It will zoom past that tiny Dwarf Planet on <strong>Tuesday morning, July 14</strong>, with its closest approach a mere one Earth width above the freezing surface. But it will be so frantically busy taking pictures, it won&#39;t get around to sending us the best close-ups until a day later&mdash;Wednesday.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/new-horizons.jpg" style="width: 560px; height: 372px;" /><br />
<em>photo credit: Artist&rsquo;s concept of NASA&rsquo;s New Horizons spacecraft as it passes Pluto and Pluto&rsquo;s largest moon, Charon, in July 2015. (Credit: NASA/JHU APL/SwRI/Steve Gribben)</em></p>
<h2>
What do you need to know about Pluto?</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<span style="line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">It&#39;s tiny: only 1400 miles wide -- much smaller than our moon.</span></li>
<li>
<span style="line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">Pluto is really a double object. Pluto and Charon, with a mere two-to-one size difference.&nbsp;</span></li>
<li>
<span style="line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">Make sure you pronounce its moon Karen, like the feminine name. The pair orbit around an empty piece of space between them once a week.&nbsp; Several other even smaller moons are there too, with weird names like Nyx.</span></li>
<li>
<span style="line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">Pluto takes a quarter of a millennium to orbit the Sun. During its slow &quot;year,&quot; its orbit is so tilted that it can appear in odd places in the sky. For example, starting in 2060, it will spend more than a half century in the constellation of Cetus the Whale. So don&#39;t be surprised if at astrology gatherings someone says odd things like, &quot;My Pluto&#39;s in Cetus.&quot;</span></li>
</ul>
<p><span style="line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">On Tuesday morning (the 14th), the New Horizons craft cannot stop and orbit Pluto. Instead it will skim closely by, traveling at 8 miles per second, giving its cameras just a half-hour window of close approach before it continues onward, never to return.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">On Pluto&#39;s hemisphere that won&#39;t be facing those close-up cameras, the approach pictures already show a bizarre series of four giant evenly-spaced circular black spots, each a few hundred miles wide. They resemble nothing else in the known universe. </span></p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/Pluto-and-Charon-in-true-colour(1).jpg" style="width: 559px; height: 379px;" /></p>
<p><em>New color images from NASA&rsquo;s New Horizons spacecraft show two very different faces of the mysterious dwarf planet, one with a series of intriguing spots along the equator that are evenly spaced. (Credit: NASA/New Horizons/LORRI/Ralph)</em></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">So, fortunately, unlike the smudgy, blurry lack of details that Voyager 2 showed on Neptune in 1989, or the blank aqua overcast seen on Uranus in 1986, here finally is an outer planet where our fly-by has lots of detail to observe.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">As for whether it&#39;s really a planet</span><span style="line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">&mdash;</span><span style="line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">let&#39;s get into that next week. Meantime, like Mickey, we can all finally say, &quot;Hello Pluto.&quot;</span></p>
<!-- google_ad_section_end -->http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/pluto-getting-stranger-minute#commentsAstronomy BlogMon, 06 Jul 2015 13:29:33 +0000Bob Berman79738 at http://www.almanac.comThis Week's Amazing Sky: Do You Have Conjunction-itis? http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/weeks-amazing-sky-do-you-have-conjunction-itis
<!-- google_ad_section_start --><p>Everyone loved last Saturday&#39;s wonderful meeting of the Moon with Venus and Jupiter. Happily, the sky has one more treat up its sleeve. This conjunction may be even better.</p>
<!--break--><!--break--><p>Start this <strong>Sunday evening, June 28</strong>.&nbsp; Look into the fading twilight, say at 9:15 or 9:30.&nbsp; Two brilliant stars side by side.&nbsp; The most dazzling is Venus, now at its brightest.&nbsp; It hasn&#39;t looked this good in years. Next to it is Jupiter.&nbsp; They both circle around the Sun of course, but Venus travels so fast that we can actually see its 22 mile-per-second orbital motion.&nbsp; Sunday evening, Venus is the rightmost member of the pair, but this will change almost overnight.</p>
<p><strong><em><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/june-28-2015.png" style="width: 560px; height: 440px;" /><br />
9 P.M. (EDT) on June 28, 2015: Look towards the west and you&#39;ll see the two brightest planets in the night sky converging!<br />
Credit: NASA</em></strong></p>
<p> Also on <strong>Sunday night</strong>, look just below the Moon.&nbsp; That star almost touching the Moon is the planet Saturn.&nbsp; When has finding Saturn been easier?&nbsp; If you have any kind of telescope, this is where to point it.&nbsp; No celestial item is more amazing than those rings.&nbsp; All it takes is anything over 30x.&nbsp; Don&#39;t bother trying binoculars.&nbsp; They&#39;re not powerful enough.</p>
<p> Fast forward to the next night, <strong>Monday, June 29</strong>.&nbsp; Same time, and now Venus and Jupiter are even closer together.&nbsp; But the dramatic climax happens Tuesday evening, <strong>June 30</strong>.&nbsp; Don&#39;t miss it.&nbsp; There in deepening twilight, the two brightest &#39;stars&#39; in all the heavens hover dramatically close together.&nbsp;</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/june-30-2015-planets.png" style="width: 560px; height: 440px;" /></p>
<p><strong><em>9 P.M. (EDT) on June 30, 2015: Look up! Venus and Jupiter are a jaw-dropping 1/3 degree apart</em><span style="line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">&mdash;less than the diameter of a full Moon!</span><br />
<em>Credit: NASA</em></strong></p>
<p>In actuality, Venus floats between us and the Sun while Jupiter is way off in the distance, five times farther away than the Sun. Its nearness explains why Venus appears 10 times brighter, and also the fact that Venus&#39; clouds are the shiniest items in the solar system.&nbsp; They&#39;re more reflective than fresh snow.&nbsp; Weirdly, they&#39;re made of concentrated sulfuric acid droplets. This is a look-don&#39;t-touch kind of thing.</p>
<p> If you&#39;d like to squeeze a bit more out of this conjunction, the single star to the left of the planets&mdash;not nearly as bright but boasting a pastel blue color<span style="line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">&mdash;</span><span style="line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">is Regulus, the famous alpha star of Leo the Lion. The show starts Sunday evening. Write and tell us whether you saw all this, and what you thought!</span></p>
<!-- google_ad_section_end -->http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/weeks-amazing-sky-do-you-have-conjunction-itis#commentsAstronomy BlogWed, 24 Jun 2015 14:22:46 +0000Bob Berman79556 at http://www.almanac.comThis Week's Amazing Sky: Fun with Humidity http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/weeks-amazing-sky-fun-humidity
<!-- google_ad_section_start --><p>It&#39;s humidity season. And there ARE those among us who find humidity exciting, whose bodies seem to revel in tropical air.</p>
<!--break--><!--break--><p>Most of us are not of that school; we use that divine invention, the air conditioner, as much for its drying as for its cooling talents. But, while it&#39;s upon us, let&#39;s discover humidity&#39;s scientific side.</p>
<h2>
How does humidity affect temperature?</h2>
<p>The most important fact is that warm summer air can hold much more moisture than cold winter air&nbsp;up to 30 times more! Warm air is less dense than cold air so there is more room for water vapor&mdash;which is why it&#39;s more humid in the summer.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/landscape-564738_1280(1).jpg" style="width: 560px; height: 561px;" /></p>
<p>So, the game goes like this:</p>
<ul>
<li>
Summer sun heats the ground, which heats the air just above the ground.</li>
<li>
This air rises&nbsp;like a hot-air balloon (since it is less dense).</li>
<li>
As it ascends, the mass of rising air cools at the rate of five degrees per thousand feet, until it can no longer hold its moisture, which then abruptly condenses into droplets.</li>
<li>
Bingo, a cloud!</li>
</ul>
<p>That&#39;s why the cloud bases hover so picturesquely at the same height. These flat bottoms reveal the altitude at which it&#39;s cool enough so that the rising air can no longer hold its vapor. On most of this continent that&#39;s typically four to seven thousand feet high.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/clouds(1).jpg" style="width: 561px; height: 369px;" /></p>
<p>How does humidity affect clouds?</p>
<ul>
<li>
Because very humid air will naturally become saturated sooner, clouds are <strong>lower</strong> whenever humidity is higher.</li>
<li>
During crisp, dry periods, clouds are much <strong>higher</strong>. Clouds appear white because very tiny water droplets reflect all of the sun&#39;s wavelengths equally.</li>
</ul>
<p>In fact, high clouds show you the sun&#39;s true color, which is whiter and less yellow than people imagine.&nbsp;Gray or dark clouds look that way simply because sunlight isn&#39;t striking them. Either they&#39;re floating in the shadow of another cloud, or else they&#39;re so thick that sunlight hitting their tops can&#39;t diffuse all the way to their bases. That&#39;s the case with thunderclouds, which can be nine miles thick, giving their bottoms a truly dark and ominous appearance.</p>
<h2>
How does humidity affect sky observers?</h2>
<p>For sky observers, humidity is a two-edged sword. All but the brightest stars vanish on a hazy night, and it&#39;s an impossibly bad time to look for galaxies.</p>
<p>But the more homogeneous temperatures found in humid air masses make bright telescopic objects very steady and sharp. So this is the very best time for observing the moon and planets through a telescope.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/moon-694376_1280.jpg" style="width: 560px; height: 413px;" /></p>
<p>The Moon&#39;s lighting is perfect for telescope views. Even binoculars nicely highlight the lunar terrain.&nbsp; Finally, a way to squeeze something positive out of the moist air.</p>
<!-- google_ad_section_end -->http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/weeks-amazing-sky-fun-humidity#commentsAstronomy BlogSun, 21 Jun 2015 16:57:09 +0000Bob Berman79405 at http://www.almanac.comThis Week's Amazing Sky: The Solstice Conjunction!http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/amazing-solstice-conjunction
<!-- google_ad_section_start --><p>This Saturday night (June 20), we&#39;ll see the year&#39;s best conjunction.</p>
<!--break--><!--break--><p><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;">A gorgeous brilliant triangle</span><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;">&mdash;of Venus, Jupiter, and the crescent Moon</span><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;">&mdash;</span><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;">floats eerily in the west in fading twilight. It will even linger through the first hours of full darkness. The three brightest objects of the night all stand together. Truly spectacular.</span></p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/conjunction-nasa.jpg" style="font-size: 13.5135135650635px; line-height: 22.972972869873px; width: 560px; height: 475px;" /><br />
<span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;">Photo of a conjunction from February, 2015. Credit: NASA</span></p>
<p>This is a don&rsquo;t miss event. If it&rsquo;s clear Saturday evening, be sure to take a look any time between 9 and 10 PM. <span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;">If it&rsquo;s cloudy, peek the next night, even though the Moon will have shifted to the left and the configuration will have changed from a triangle to an irregular line.</span></p>
<p>This all happens against the faint stars of the constellation Cancer, which looks like a crab only to those with vivid imaginations. But Leo&rsquo;s blue star Regulus is just to the left of the conjunction, though not as luminous as the three protagonists.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>It would be amazing if the Sun magically went out all of a sudden while you were watching this trio in the twilight. First Venus would vanish. Then, essentially simultaneously, we&rsquo;d lose the Moon and the colors of dusk. But Jupiter would still linger for another 90 minutes, as &ldquo;old&rdquo; sunlight continues on into the distance, then reflects off its enormous gassy surface and back to our eyes.</p>
<p>If you ever see this happening, grab the phone and sell your stocks.&nbsp;More realistically that night, pick up your cell and tell your friends to check out the western sky.</p>
<p> Tell us if you see this amazing sight!</p>
<p>Got binoculars? <a href="http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/weeks-amazing-sky-got-binoculars">Here&#39;s my advice on what binoculars do for you</a>.</p>
<!-- google_ad_section_end -->http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/amazing-solstice-conjunction#commentsAstronomy BlogMon, 15 Jun 2015 17:52:18 +0000Bob Berman79333 at http://www.almanac.comThis Week's Amazing Sky: Got Binoculars?http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/weeks-amazing-sky-got-binoculars
<!-- google_ad_section_start --><p>Got Binoculars? Then you&#39;ve got it made! Get started sky watching with some tips on&nbsp;how to choose binoculars.</p>
<!--break--><!--break--><p>June offers natural treasures by day and the starry universe by night. Both can be greatly enhanced with a simple pair of binoculars. Odds are, you&#39;ve already got a pair, gathering dust somewhere. This moonless week is an ideal time to put them to use.</p>
<p>With lenses of glass&mdash;essentially melted sand, probably the least expensive item on the planet<span style="font-size: 13.5135135650635px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;">&mdash;</span>human eyes can then soar through the universe. Indeed, Galileo&#39;s first telescopes had magnifications not too different from binoculars, but with annoying color fringing and blurry optics.&nbsp; Yet in his hands they changed the universe.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<h2 class="rtecenter">
What Binoculars Do For You</h2>
<p>Most people think of binoculars and telescopes as magnifying instruments, but this is only partially true; they&#39;re first and foremost BRIGHTENING devices. The sky has far more dim than brilliant stars, more barely-there comets than luminous ones, and so on. By enhancing light, you&#39;re not given the key to a slightly more populated realm; The improvement is geometric. Only 2,500 stars stand visible to the naked eye even on the clearest night in the boonies. Point binoculars skyward and the total jumps to 30,000.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/starry-sky.jpg" style="width: 560px; height: 373px;" /></p>
<h2 class="rtecenter">
A Few Tips on Choosing Binoculars</h2>
<p>Binoculars are rated with two numbers, as in 7x35 or 10x50. The first figure is the magnification<span style="font-size: 13.5135135650635px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;">&mdash;</span>how many times larger the object appears. The second number is the diameter of the main lens in millimeters. Since larger lenses gather more light, the bigger this number, the brighter the image, up to a point. &nbsp;</p>
<ul>
<li>
Tiny &quot;shirt pocket&quot; models are poor performers in low-light conditions.</li>
<li>
Also avoid &quot;zoom&quot; binoculars, which might seem attractive because their magnification is adjustable. But their lenses are compromises that deliver an inferior image.</li>
<li>
Finally, don&#39;t succumb to the beginner&#39;s megalomaniacal obsession with &quot;power.&quot; High power is not necessarily better. One can find binoculars rated 20x60 for under $100. But any power above 11x cannot be hand-held. Normal shaking of the hands makes the image bounce all over the place. Such binoculars require the use of a cumbersome tripod.</li>
</ul>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/binoculars-bob.jpg" style="width: 560px; height: 361px;" /></p>
<p>The exception are Canon&#39;s Image Stabilized binoculars. Their rapidly swiveling mirrors compensate for vibrations of your hand. They deliver astoundingly sharp images&mdash;but will set you back a hefty $400. If on a budget, you can get a fine-performing instrument for a mere $25, with the Celestron upclose G2 8x40.</p>
<p>Optimum binocular targets include the Milky Way, star clusters, and the Moon in any phase except for full.</p>
<p>Now just take those binoculars outside on a clear night and open your eyes to the unseen universe!</p>
<!-- google_ad_section_end -->http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/weeks-amazing-sky-got-binoculars#commentsAstronomy BlogThu, 11 Jun 2015 14:25:17 +0000Bob Berman79208 at http://www.almanac.comThis Week's Amazing Sky: Dark Matter!http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/weeks-amazing-sky-dark-matter
<!-- google_ad_section_start --><h2>
Did Most of the Universe Go Missing?</h2>
<p><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;">Seventy-one years ago, most of the universe went missing.&nbsp; According to many astronomers, it&#39;s still missing. </span></p>
<!--break--><!--break--><p><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;">The problem started with the famous Swiss physicist Fritz Zwicky.&nbsp; It was he who coined the word supernova.&nbsp; He was such a heavy hitter, everyone paid attention when his gigantic brain went Boing.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;">It did exactly that in 1933, when he studied speeds in a group of galaxies. What he perceived was astonishing.&nbsp; Each member moved so quickly, it should have no problem escaping the gravitational glue of the entire assembly. Zwicky realized that this galaxy cluster</span><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;">&mdash;</span><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;">and all others, it soon turned out</span><span style="font-size: 13.5135135650635px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;">&mdash;</span><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;">shouldn&#39;t even exist. Yet there they were.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;">Extra gravity must lurk within and among the galaxies. The conclusion was bewildering: the universe is apparently dominated by some invisible substance boasting an enormous &quot;pull.&quot; Zwicky called it dark matter and the name stuck.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;"><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/dark-matter-hubble.jpg" style="width: 560px; height: 560px;" /><br />
Credit: HubbleSite</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;">As telescopes got bigger and we observed more of the universe, the situation stubbornly endured.&nbsp; There&#39;s far more gravity in the universe than can be accounted for.&nbsp; What&#39;s creating it? What is this strange, unseen, powerful stuff?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;">Most astronomers assume dark matter consists of undiscovered particles that only anemically interact with planets, stars, our bodies, ourselves.&nbsp; They call this WIMPS, for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;"><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/dark-matter-hubble-2.jpg" style="width: 560px; height: 573px;" /><br />
Credit: HubbleSite</span><br />
&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;">It&#39;s not farfetched.&nbsp; The universe&#39;s most common particle is the neutrino.&nbsp; These too are invisible.&nbsp; These, too, are numerous, and barely influence normal matter.&nbsp; A trillion neutrinos pass through each of your fingernails every second.&nbsp; So it&#39;s not much of a stretch to imagine a kind of souped-up neutrino mostly dwelling in haloes around each galaxy. Meaning, galaxies are like ships in bottles, enclosed by dark, massive, unseen spheres.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;"><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/dark-matter.jpg" style="width: 559px; height: 404px;" /><br />
Credit: NASA</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;">Every few years, researchers think they&#39;ve spied traces of WIMPS, but it&#39;s never panned out. Then, almost forty years ago, an Israeli physicist proposed an entirely different solution to the crazy galaxy motion problem. Instead of seeking missing mass that tugs at everything, he showed that we&#39;d see the same thing if gravity itself behaves differently at weak levels.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;">If there&#39;s a lower limit on how wimpy gravity can become, then the motion of the universe makes sense without there needing to be any dark matter at all.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;">So which is it? Weird gravity, or some unseen substance? The food fight between the two sides is likely to rage for years. Until then, we can only gaze into the night sky and wonder whether most of the cosmos is really missing.</span></p>
<!-- google_ad_section_end -->http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/weeks-amazing-sky-dark-matter#commentsAstronomy BlogWed, 03 Jun 2015 13:33:53 +0000Bob Berman79064 at http://www.almanac.comThis Week's Amazing Sky: What Is the Universe Expanding Into?http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/weeks-amazing-sky-what-universe-expanding
<!-- google_ad_section_start --><p><span style="line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">&quot;<strong>What Is the Universe Expanding Into</strong>?&quot;&nbsp;</span><span style="line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">A reader recently asked that question. So here&#39;s the inside scoop.</span></p>
<!--break--><!--break--><p>But first, what exactly is expanding?</p>
<ul>
<li>
Not our solar system with its planets orbiting the sun</li>
<li>
<span style="line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">Not our Milky Way galaxy of 400 billion stars. It never gets any bigger.</span></li>
<li>
<span style="line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">Not the galaxies right around us. Indeed, the nearest spiral, Andromeda, is approaching us at 70 miles per second and will someday harmlessly collide with us!</span></li>
</ul>
<p>In fact, nothing the naked eye can see, even on the clearest night in the country, is expanding. In our own galaxy, stars do have small random motions, but just as many approach us as are flying away.</p>
<p><strong>So what&#39;s expanding?</strong></p>
<p>It&#39;s the empty space between galaxy clusters. That&#39;s the only thing that grows larger. That&#39;s the whole story.</p>
<p>Therefore, no matter where in the cosmos you lived, you&#39;d see other galaxy clusters increasing their distance from your own. This is the simple truth and we can all picture it.</p>
<p>The problem arises when we try to visualize the entire universe as if it were an inflating balloon that we&#39;re observing as if we are outside it. There is no &quot;outside&quot; to the universe. So that perspective is non-existent. Our headline question may seem meaningful, but it isn&#39;t, and therefore no answer can make sense.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/messier-101-10995_1280(1).jpg" style="width: 560px; height: 438px;" /></p>
<p><em><strong><span style="line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">You can be outside a galaxy such as this one, but you can never be outside the universe to look back at it.</span></strong></em></p>
<p>Do you still find this limitation frustrating? You&#39;re not alone. That&#39;s because the cosmos taken as-a-whole does not play by the same logical rules we&#39;ve devised to help us understand its parts.</p>
<!-- google_ad_section_end -->http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/weeks-amazing-sky-what-universe-expanding#commentsAstronomy BlogTue, 19 May 2015 15:50:33 +0000Bob Berman78739 at http://www.almanac.comThis Week's Amazing Sky: Ever See a Fireball?http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/ever-see-fireball
<!-- google_ad_section_start --><p>This week offers dark moonless skies. Perfect for <strong>meteors!</strong>&nbsp;We&#39;ve all seen them streak across the heavens. But did you know that....</p>
<!--break--><!--break--><p>You always see more after midnight, when you&#39;re on the forward-facing part of Earth</p>
<ul>
<li>
You see more from August through early January than any other month</li>
<li>
<span style="line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">You never see the meteoroid itself<span style="line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">&mdash;</span>just the glowing air surrounding it</span></li>
<li>
<span style="line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">Most are the size of apple seeds</span></li>
</ul>
<p>Some of these facts seem counterintuitive. After all, a reader recently reported seeing one come down over a neighbor&#39;s backyard. Well, yes, they can seem that way. In truth, they either burn to dust or else slow down enough to stop glowing when 60 miles up. So all are between 60 and 120 miles away from you. On this moonless week, if you live away from bright city lights, you&#39;ll see six each hour between midnight and dawn.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.willgater.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/Perseid-fireball.png" style="width: 560px; height: 358px;" /></a></p>
<p>Perseid Fireball from 2013. Credit:&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="http://www.willgater.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.willgater.com</a></p>
<h2>
What&#39;s in a Name?</h2>
<h2>
&nbsp;</h2>
<h2>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20.3999996185303px;">Out in space, the tiny invisible bits of ice, stone, or metal -- debris from asteroid or comets -- are called meteoroids. When they hit the atmosphere and become visible, they&#39;re meteors, or shooting stars, or falling stars.</span></h2>
<p>A rare super-bright one that casts shadows is called a fireball. And if it explodes into glowing pieces, you&#39;ve been lucky enough to see a bolide.<br />
&nbsp;</p>
<!-- google_ad_section_end -->http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/ever-see-fireball#commentsAstronomy BlogMon, 11 May 2015 14:04:42 +0000Bob Berman78445 at http://www.almanac.comThis Week's Amazing Sky: The Evening Starhttp://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/weeks-amazing-sky-evening-star
<!-- google_ad_section_start --><p>Welcome to our <strong>night sky exploration</strong>. Let&#39;s have fun! <span style="font-size: 13.5135135650635px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;">I know you&#39;ve already spotted the <strong>Evening Star</strong> after sunset. &nbsp;</span></p>
<!--break--><!--break--><p>It generates more UFO reports than any other object.&nbsp; It&#39;s simply the brightest thing in the sky, after the Moon. It&#39;s <strong>Venus</strong>, the closest planet to us.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/venus-11587_640.jpg" style="font-size: 13.5135135650635px; line-height: 22.972972869873px; width: 560px; height: 280px;" /></p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/planet-11060_640.jpg" style="width: 560px; height: 280px;" /></p>
<p>Right now, Venus is about as high up as it can get. As evening twilight deepens, it&#39;s more than a third of the way up the western sky, and remains dazzling for hours. It&#39;s astronomy made easy.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/sunset-271387_1280.jpg" style="width: 560px; height: 559px;" /></p>
<p>At this week&#39;s end, it will float in the same spot that the Sun occupies on the summer solstice&mdash;meaning, it&#39;s at its farthest north of the year, which is one reason it&#39;s so prominent for us northern hemisphere folks.</p>
<p>The next evening you see the Evening Star, share these half dozen cool facts about it:&nbsp;</p>
<ul>
<li>
It&#39;s the shiniest planet in the universe.&nbsp;</li>
<li>
<span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;">It&#39;s so reflective because it&#39;s covered with brilliant white clouds made of sulfuric acid droplets.&nbsp;</span></li>
<li>
<span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;">Venus is [also] the slowest spinning body in the known universe. You can walk as fast as it rotates!</span></li>
<li>
<span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;">It&#39;s the hottest of all worlds.&nbsp;</span></li>
<li>
<span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 22.972972869873px;">And it is the only one whose size closely matches our own beloved Earth.</span></li>
</ul>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.almanac.com/sites/new.almanac.com/files/images/venus-11586_1280.jpg" style="width: 560px; height: 448px;" /></p>
<p>Does this bright body look magical? Surreal?&nbsp; Last year, 2014, it was essentially invisible.&nbsp; Now that it&#39;s back and at its most glorious.</p>
<p><em><strong>What do you think when you see it</strong>? <strong>Does it impart a unique, well, feeling?&nbsp; Share your thoughts</strong>.</em></p>
<!-- google_ad_section_end -->http://www.almanac.com/blog/astronomy-blog/weeks-amazing-sky-evening-star#commentsAstronomy BlogTue, 28 Apr 2015 20:13:27 +0000Bob Berman78349 at http://www.almanac.com